Another morning, another bowl of congee. That’s right, today’s post picks up right where we left off yesterday. The nice lady at the congee shop even remembered my order, telling the other lady what to write down for me and thereby saving me an undoubtedly embarrassing attempt at ordering in Cantonese. It felt nice knowing that I could be considered a “regular” at this place. However, I did not have such luck in the evening. Suddenly craving a plate of mango sticky rice, I found a well-reviewed Thai restaurant on the outskirts of Tuen Mun. I usually get by by ordering in Mandarin, but I don’t think the waitress knew that much Mandarin. So, I decided to bust out my very rusty Cantonese and ask the waitress simple questions like what the best dishes are and how big the portions were. In the end, I even ordered in Cantonese using the numbers written on the menu. I was honestly pretty surprised that I still remembered that much off the top of my head, but this trip has been full of even bigger surprises. In fact, as I raised my head to think of the next sentence, I saw one of my classmates from Lingnan sitting at the table across from mine! She seems busy so I’ll just be a New Yorker and not say anything. But what are the chances!
Many of the students on this trip know that I thoroughly enjoyed my two extended stays in Taiwan in 2017, but the one thing I couldn’t find for the life of me was mango sticky rice. I spent the whole summer searching to no avail. So, I’m especially grateful that I was able to find it in seconds on Openrice here in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, you win today.
